


White Hats

by shadydave



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Crossover, Gen, The Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness, Walk Into A Bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 05:50:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11937666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadydave/pseuds/shadydave
Summary: It’s a very comprehensive hat-based philosophy.





	White Hats

“Mmm. Strange,” said Pattern, which was all the warning Shallan got before a darkeyed man pulled out the chair across from her and sat down at her table like he belonged there.

Shallan inwardly groaned. People were growing more desperate as it became clear that things were never going back to normal. Either this man was going to pick a fight or he was going to offer her a clumsy and probably disgusting come-on, both despite Shallan wearing the face of a woman designed to look like she ate nails for breakfast.

But the man did neither. He just squinted at her head until he finally said, “Your hat don’t match your boots.”

“I’m not wearing a hat,” said Shallan, wondering if this was the informant the Ghostbloods were due to send her. Well, technically they thought they were sending Veil’s courier an informant. Unless Mraize had anticipated her subterfuge and knew that instead of posing as Veil, she’d be posing as the courier. Storms, spying on spies was _hard_. If she thought about it too long it made her want to curl up into a ball, so instead she didn’t think about it: she just did it, collecting as much information she could glean, whether through her successes _or_ her failures.

“Well, that there’s your problem,” said the man, tapping the side of his nose. “It’s the hat what ties it all together. Can’t do a proper disguise without a hat.”

Shallan only froze for a second.

“Watch,” she whispered to Pattern, softly enough that only he could hear her, covering the movement of her lips by wearily rubbing her face, like just talking to this stranger made her tired and irritated. Pattern buzzed once in acknowledgment and zipped off to check for more spies or an ambush.

“What in Damnation are you talking about?” she said, proud of herself that she’d only blushed a little when she swore. If this was the Ghostbloods, she wasn’t going to make unmasking her easy for them.

The man leaned back in his chair and put his own boots on the table. He gestured for her to copy him, waiting patiently until she put her feet up too. The innkeeper glared at them; Shallan gave him a flat stare until he scowled and looked away.

“See, _that_ went with the hat you’re not wearin’,” said the man.

“What did?”

“Your murder face,” said the man. “That’s the face of a woman who’s been to Ruin and back. A woman with no rust to give. That woman don’t care what her clothes look like as long as they do their job, and she don’t care what job she does as long as she gets paid.”

Shallan shifted in her seat and tried not to look uncomfortable. That _was_ what she had been going for when she sketched a suitable courier for Veil: someone tough but unambitious, who looked reliable enough but wouldn’t attract the attention of the Ghostbloods as a possible ally. She’d attracted far too much attention from them already.

“So I don’t have a hat, but I do have a murder face,” she said. “Of course. Where do my boots come into it?”

“You can tell a lot from someone’s boots,” said the man. “See?” He wiggled his own. 

Shallan reluctantly inspected them, one eye watching the man in case he tried anything. His boots were strange, with a stacked heel and an odd pattern of wearing around the ankle and waist, like – like he wore spurs? The only darkeyes she knew who rode were part of the Cobalt Guard, but she had a feeling this man and military discipline didn't belong in the same sentence. Or the same paragraph. Or the same book.

"You can ride a horse," she said. “Which means you're not from around here.”

"I sure ain’t," said the man. Was he from the east somewhere? His accent didn’t seem to fit; if anything, it was sounding more and more like the accent _she_ was using. “But that’s not all. See, these were a pretty good pair of boots. Cost me ten boxings and kept me dry for six months. But now they leak like anything and I’ll have to replace them at the end of the year.”

“We already passed the end of the year,” said Shallan.

“We did?” said the man. “These seasons make no rusting sense. Like your boots, see.” 

“What’s wrong with my boots?” she asked indignantly.

“They’re too fancy,” said the man.

Shallan looked pointedly at him, then the worn leather, with a skeptical expression.

“Oh, they’re not _pretty_ ,” said the man. “But boots like that – well-made, sturdy – would have cost you fifty boxings easy. Mine barely lasted one year; those’ll last you for a decade.”

“And they look like I’ve had them _at least_ that long,” retorted Shallan. She didn’t know the exchange rate for boxings, but these boots cost a fraction of the price of her regular shoes and looked like they’d been dragged across the Shattered Plains and survived a highstorm. Which they had.

“But they don’t leak, do they?” said the man. “In ten years, you’ll have spent fifty boxings and have dry feet; I’ll have spent twice that and still have leaky boots. So are you a woman who manages to save up for a fancy pair of boots and hang on to them for a decade, or a woman who has to replace them every time they fall apart after she kicks people in the face?”

“Why am I kicking people in the face?” asked Shallan, fascinated despite herself.

“Because you’re angry about your wet feet,” said the man. 

“Which I don’t have,” said Shallan. “Well, at least they go with my hat.”

“Now you got it,” said the man, sounding pleased.

“So what kind of hat is that?” she asked, gesturing at his head. It’s plain and black, but oddly round.

“Bowler,” said the man. “But right now, it’s my conner hat.”

Shallan took her feet off the table and leaned forward. "Psst," she said from behind her hand. "You're not supposed to _tell_ people you're a con man."

“I’m not,” said the man indignantly. “I trade everything fair and square. This is my _constable_ ’s hat.”

"What did you trade to the constable?"

The man let out a long sigh. Shallan grinned.

"Murder face," he reminded her, and she hastily rearranged her expression. 

"So are you here to arrest me?" she asked.

"Actually, I was lookin’ for a partner," said the man. 

“To go shopping for boots,” Shallan guessed.

"Nah, I’m supposed to investigate a murder."

Shallan felt her eyebrows try to raise and intensified her glare to compensate. A man at the bar accidentally caught her gaze and nearly knocked over his drink trying to turn away.

Then she caught a glimpse of Pattern on the floor. "Whose murder?" she asked, leaning forward to cover for him as he slid up her chair and circled around somewhere, probably to her back.

“Men nearby, watching,” said Pattern softly, with a warning hum. “They have weapons.”

Before Shallan could figure out how to respond, the man across the table pulled out a piece of paper and squinted at the lines of script.

“You can _read_?” she asked, astounded and a little horrified. 

“Well, sometimes I gotta use my fingers,” said the man. “Let’s see – victim’s name was Tanavast. Last seen a few thousand years ago. Aliases include Honor, the Almighty, and God."

“ _What_?” 

“Kind of an echo in here,” he said mildly, as nearby drinkers looked over at their table, then hastily away. Pattern had shouted at the same time she had.

Shallan stared at the man in consternation. Her first instinct was that he was obviously insane, but—

“You can’t seriously be looking for the Almighty,” she said; it sounded a little too much like a question.

"I'm on a mission from God," said the man. "No relation." 

A sharp, warning buzz. “They’re coming!” said Pattern, and Shallan caught a glimpse of men moving purposefully down the street outside, heading right for the inn.

“We need to get out of here,” said Shallan, drawing in a trickle of Stormlight and feeling the answering buzz in her veins. Two doors, multiple windows – plenty of exits, but they need a distraction if they want to get out without being seen.

“Don’t forget your hat,” said the man.

Shallan looked at him. Then she let the storm inside her send her surging to her feet. With one hand, she flipped their table into a surly huddle of nearby drinkers as easily as the stormwall flinging a boulder.

“Drynets!” she shouted over their enraged yells, and punched the man in the face.

He sprawled backwards onto the floor. “Nice,” he said approvingly, as the bar fight started.

~*~*~*~

Shallan landed in the pile of garbage with a grunt and a squish.

“And stay out,” said the bouncer, dusting off his hands. He had to close the door gently behind him; its hinges broke when the man she’d been talking to had been thrown through it.

She took a deep breath, feeling Stormlight flow into her cracked ribs, not unlike the dirty water seeping into her trousers from whatever puddle she landed in. At least, she _hoped_ it was water. “Are you all right?”

“Busted collarbone,” said the pile of garbage next to her, sounding rather cheerful about it. “Should be fine in just a minute.”

“He has no Stormlight,” grumbled Pattern as he flowed down a broken barrel beside her. “This does not fit the pattern.”

“Are the other men gone?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Pattern.

“Excellent,” said Shallan, climbing to her feet. She sloshed through a pool of scummy water and looked down at the man from the inn. He’d put his feet up on a sack of rotting fruit and tilted his hat over his face.

“Are you – are you _taking a nap_?”

“Well, you and your invisible friend need to decide how far you’re gonna trust me. Probably be a while. Take your time.”

“I don’t have an—” Shallan stopped; there was no point in denying Pattern when he was conspicuously buzzing in irritation. She decided to try a different tack. “You wanted a partner. How do you know if you can trust _me_?”

“I don’t,” said the man. “I mean, sure, there’s stuff you can do – give me a seat, save me from thugs, get me new boots – but no matter how many hats we wear, it still depends on the one on the bottom.”

“I think you've been wearing your hat wrong,” said Shallan.

The man snickered, then said, “The last hat, I mean. But you can wear it whatever way you want, I won’t judge. The other hats – they’ve all got something you need. Put it on, be someone else. Or be yourself, but more – the kind of you that didn't make mistakes, that didn’t break and put yourself back together. A fancy hat that others look up to, the kind you want your friends to think you have. But you still have to take that off, too, and there’s always one left. The one you sleep in at night. Some people never see it; sometimes even you lose track of it. But it’s there. That’s the one we gotta trust, before we can trust anyone else.”

Shallan thought of her sketches: not her collections of others, but the drawings of herself. This courier with sturdy boots. Veil striding confidently across the page. Brightness Shallan standing proud and upright before the Alethi court. A Knight Radiant, shining before an army like a beacon of hope. 

The broken girl she should be, curling into a ball in the corner. 

They were all part of her. But there was also the part of her that created them, that decided which one she should be, who the world needed. Who _she_ needed.

“I know what you mean,” she said softly.

“Really?” said the man, pushing his hat up to look at her. “That’s not what people normally say.”

“What do they normally say?”

“Something like, ‘Wayne, what the hell are you talking about?’”

“I don’t know why,” said Shallan. “It’s a very comprehensive hat-based philosophy.”

“Thank you,” said Wayne. “That’s what I say, only in shorter words.”

She smiled. “So, just to be clear: I don’t know if I can trust you, and you don’t know if you can trust me. But we both have jobs to do, so we better start looking for our hats.”

He pointed his fingers at her and made a clicking noise.

“Well, I _would_ like to find out how far we can get before everything goes wrong,” said Shallan, holding out her hand. 

“ _Strange_ ,” Pattern muttered, but he didn’t object.

Wayne took her hand and got to his feet with a splash.

“Rust and Ruin!” he swore. 

“What?” said Shallan, filing that away for future use.

“My feet are all wet.”

~*~*~*~

“Kaladin!”

He woke with a start. “Syl? What is it?”

She zipped up to his shoulder and landed, hands on her hips. “Well… nothing? But something’s changed, I can tell.”

He scanned the room; he didn’t have much, so it didn’t take very long. It was empty. 

“There’s nothing—”

“Not _now_ ,” said Syl, sounding frustrated. “Just a flash. But now… something’s _strange_.”

For the sake of completeness, he rolled over and looked under the cot, even if it made him feel like a child.

There were no Voidbringers under the bed. But Syl was right, there _was_ something strange: a wrapped chouta sitting on the floor, gently steaming, next to a little umbrella like the lighteyes put in their drinks.

Also strange: what _wasn’t_ under his cot.

“Where,” said Kaladin, “are my _storming boots_?”

**Author's Note:**

> Is it REALLY a crossover if both stories take place in the same universe at about the same time and characters can canonically travel between worlds and Shallan already owns a cowboy hat?
> 
> Anyway I just really enjoy that the two of them basically have the same philosophy and I'm excited about all the _Oathbringer_ stuff, so: here you go!


End file.
